Don't Date Naked
And don't put beans up your nose. And don't think about pink elephants!
Anyway, here's some dating advice for you teens, courtesy of Brio Magazine, the Focus on the Family mag for teenage girls. It's from Don't Date Naked, an advice book by Michael and Amy Smalley. Michael Smalley is the son of Dr. Gary Smalley, a guy who makes his living by holding Christian marriage improvement seminars. Michael now helps his dad with this scam when he's not assisting cousin Stuart Smalley with the Christian daily affirmation seminars.
Now, on to the naked dating! God’s Wardrobe for Successful Dating
by Michael Smalley
When I graduated from Scottsdale Christian Academy High School, Stacy and I were still very much an “item” on campus. We had a great relationship and enjoyed so much fun together. Although we were close — and I saw us marrying one day — we never considered attending the same college. I think we both wanted to explore life, meet other people, date others, but always assuming that in the end, we’d become Mr. and Mrs. Michael Smalley. All of this was unsaid, of course, because we were young and immature, but that’s how both of us felt.
Michael knew that Stacy wanted to marry him, even though she never said so, and even though what she did say was that she wanted to date other people. Yes, he knew about her desire to someday be his wife by the way she looked at him when she handed him the restraining order. Throughout my college years I kept in touch with Stacy by calling her every few months. Our relationship wasn’t serious, but I wanted to keep things going because I still thought she was The One.
Surprise, I’m Engaged! Early in my junior year at Baylor, I received one of those periodic phone calls from Stacy.
“Hey, can I talk to you?” she asked in that perky way of hers.
One of the things Michael loved about Stacy was her perky way of telling him that they needed to talk. Well, maybe it was more "jaunty" than "perky." Or perhaps "smug." Or "cruel and heartless." When Michael thought about it later, he decided that Stacy was really a "bitch", and it was her breasts that were perky. “Sure. What’s going on?”
“Well, I wanted you to be the first to know.”
“Know what?”
“That I’m engaged.”
“Engaged? You’ve got to be kidding me!” I was shocked. “How did that happen?”
Well, Michael, when a man and a woman love each other very much, and hot steamy sex is involved, and his penis is really big . . . “Well, Mark and I met in a communication class last spring, and things moved pretty fast. Now we’re getting married.”
“I’m happy for you, Stacy.” I paused. “So are you calling me to find out how I feel about your getting engaged?”
"Hell, no! You're nothing to me now, Michael. I just called to gloat." "Well, I AM GOING to tell you how I feel about it -- I feel like you are a cheap, skanky, treacherous, faithless, lying slut! But I mean that in a nice way." “Well, I’m not sure exactly why I’m calling you.”
“To be totally honest, I’m shocked. I really thought we’d get married someday.”
For the longest time I heard total silence on the phone line. I knew what she was thinking: Great. Now I have two guys asking me to get married.
Well, not to disparage Michael's uncanny ability to read Stacy's mind, but what I believe she was really thinking was, "What a loser! I wouldn't marry him if he was the last Smalley on earth. How ever did he ever get the idea we would end up together someday, especially after I told him that I only liked him like an unfavorite step-brother, or a really distant cousin whom I only wanted to talk to every few months? Gosh, it must be my damned perkiness." “I didn’t expect this,” she whispered. “Yeah, I’m sorry, but I’m going to stick with this guy,” she said.
What was left to say except goodbye? When I returned the phone to its cradle, waves of devastation swept over me. I felt worthless, like a sack of trash tossed overboard. Her rejection was a real kick in the teeth.
"I was about as low as an apple dropped off the Empire State Building, which then splatted all over the ground and got mixed up with dog poop. And I felt as humiliated as a contestant on "American Idol" who has been slammed by that snooty British guy -- but not one of those freaks who embraces the notoriety and gets rich being the butt of everyone's jokes; no, the other kind, who is just a loser for nothing. But Stacy was like that priest in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom who reached inside the guy's chest and pulled out his beating heart and then ate it. Well, I can't remember if the priest ate the heart or not, but that's what Stacy did -- metaphorically. Or simileically. Whatever. For I had about as many metaphors as a Doug Giles in the ferret hut on free crack night at the inauguration ball." Three Special Words As horrible as I felt that day, I think it would’ve been far worse if I hadn’t maintained emotional boundaries in the dating relationship. You see, I’d never whispered to Stacy the three simple words: “I love you.”
Some of you may be thinking that if I’d said the words, maybe Stacy would’ve known how I felt about her and wouldn’t have dated someone else. I disagree. Stacy knew what I thought of her.
"So, see, the harlot has no excuse for two-timing me this way. Thank God I never told her that I loved her, because that would mean that SHE won this round." Based on how I treated Stacy, how I respected her and how I honored the relationship, she knew she was special to me and that we could have a future together.
"And we stll could, if she will just dump that low-life Microsoft billionaire she married, and come crawling back to me." What helped with this commitment was that Stacy and I agreed about some fundamentals. We talked about saying “I love you.” She agreed that we should put boundaries on those words.
She agreed to these boundaries by telling Michael that not only didn't she love him, but that she had only ever dated him out of pity. But at least they reached an accord on the fundamentals -- that neither of them would ever say anything about love, getting married, or ever seeing each other again. We agreed to that because I believe people use those three words far too casually. Too many young people start dating and the next thing you know, they’re locking eyes and saying, “I love you.”
Uttering that phrase is crossing an emotional boundary. Like toothpaste squeezed out of a tube, those words are impossible to put back in once they come out of your mouth. When you say, “I love you,” you’re acting like a married couple, and the reality is that you’re not married. Which brings me to my point: I recommend that you don’t say, “I love you,” until you’re engaged.
Because that way, if she turns down your proposal, you can say, "Well, I never loved you anyway. I only wanted you to marry me to show everybody that I'm not gay, despite those photos at that website. I can't believe you almost fell for it!" And that way you will maintain your dignity. And how are you going to feel if you get dumped? That’s when you think, But I thought you loved me! Yes, your dating partner said those words, and you believed them. And that’s why you hurt so much.
And that's why you should never share honest emotion with another person. Excerpted from Don’t Date Naked: God’s Wardrobe for Successful Dating by Michael and Amy Smalley. Copyright 2003. Tyndale House Publishers.
I hope you have found this helpful. Now, go put some clothes on!
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